


Wrong TARDIS

by Papapaldi



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, thasmin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 15:56:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17348156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Papapaldi/pseuds/Papapaldi
Summary: Two timeships in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Thirteenth Doctor comes face to face with her previous incarnation and a friend she's still grieving.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this earlier last year so it takes place after Arachnids but not too long after, since the Doctor is still relatively new in this incarnation.
> 
> [](https://ibb.co/wzy1ms3)  
> 

Chariot station; a classy observation deck orbiting one of the fifty seven moons of the planet Krasterfell 7 – an unremarkable world by most standards, war-torn and desolate – but, it had a spectacular view of the Medusa Cascade, a place that the Doctor had explained to Yaz (eyes wide and bouncing with excitement) was her favourite galaxy in the cosmos. Now, if only the Doctor would let her out to see it. 

 

“Yaz, can you pull the wibbly lever?” The Doctor called from below the TARDIS console. She was sitting down amongst the scrap of wires and glowing crystalline pillars, attempting to fix… something. Every now and then there would be a particularly large spark or a clatter of metal, usually followed by a strangled yelp and sometimes a garbled mess of ridiculous curses, her favourite of which was, ‘jammy-dodgers on a bike.’ How the Doctor managed to say these things while sounding angry was a mystery, but it made for some great entertainment while Yaz waited for her to finish. 

 

“The what now?” Yay yelled back while scanning the console for something resembling the Doctor’s description. The TARDIS interface was composed of all manner of strange objects glued together into a haphazard and unorganised mess that by some miracle, functioned as a time machine. It really wasn’t something that one would expect from a legendary spacecraft. 

 

The Doctor let out another yelp as a spark fizzled out with a resounding crack. “Oh, Dalek tits!” she yelled, “sorry Yaz,” she added, as if this was the worse language Yaz had ever been subjected to. “Err, it’s sort of red and it looks like a curly fry – oh!” She exclaimed, seeming to lose her train of thought, as she so often did “I haven’t had fries in this body, oh Yaz, what if I don’t like fries? What if this body doesn’t like fries, can’t have a universe without –“

 

“Doctor!” Yaz interrupted, stifling a laugh, “I’ve found it, just crank it yeah?”

 

“Yep that’s right Yaz, give it a good’ol crank.” Yasmin reached over the mass of controls and pulled down of the curly fry lever. Instantly, the lights went out. 

 

“Aww Rassilon’s bleeding arse.” The Doctor groaned from below decks. She let her tools fall to the ground with a deafening clang, defeated. 

 

“I’m sorry, I thought I pressed the right one!” Yaz says, trying to feel her way towards the stairs. 

 

“No, it’s not your fault,” the Doctor popped her head up from beneath the console deck. Yaz could just make out the outlines of her comically large goggles she wore when tinkering, which she had insisted were the epitome of ‘practicality and style.’ “It’s quite possible that there was more than one wibbly lever… I didn’t think to check so far. This new interface is great though, biscuit dispensers, two wibbly levers! What will she think of next?” 

 

“Well, the great new interface doesn’t seem to be working now.” 

 

“Oi, she’s trying her best alright, aren’t ya love,” she murmured gently, stroking the floor absent-mindedly. Yaz thought she would never stoop so low as to feel jealous of a wooden box, yet here she was. As if in response, a low humming sound began to emanate from the centre of the ship, sending a faint orange glow pulsing from the normally vibrant crystalline structures. “See Yaz, told you!” The Doctor exclaimed, jumping to her feet in such a hurry that she almost hit her head on the floor of the deck above. “Lucky I’m so short now,” she muttered, stepping towards the centre of the peculiar machine. She parted layers of wires and metal-rimmed tubing like drapes letting in the morning sun – the mesmerising glow of the TARDIS streaming through the opening. “Look at her go,” she Doctor said, awestruck, “she’s found some sort of external energy source – even out here orbiting a desolate world she’s tapping in to a stream of residual artron energy – look,” she shifted to the side so that Yaz could get a better view. Taking the younger girl’s hand in her own, she moved Yap’s fingertips towards the ball of energy dancing behind that dense jungle of circuit boards and alien machinery. 

 

“See here Yaz,” the Doctor continued, voice softening in the way it always did when she was explaining something like this; something extraordinary and whimsical, something hopeful. “This stuff exists all across the universe – across every universe – like a fingerprint or breath on glass, it’s invisible, but there’s always a trace, the thread that weaves the cosmos together, and this ship harnesses that energy in order to traverse it.” Yaz watched in awe as her fingertips touched that swirling glow – it was warm and fizzing with life. She almost felt as if her body was about to unravel, become one with that brilliant light. “What d’ya think, eh?” The Doctor asks, turning to face Yaz with wide, expectant eyes. Yaz turns slowly, almost unable to tear her eyes away from the light. With the Doctor’s wide, brilliant smile waiting for her, looking away from an ancient broil of vortex energy doesn’t seem so bad. Yasmin’s eyes reflect gold against the light of the vortex, as she stares into the Doctor’s similarly radiant stare, leaning in –

 

“Wait!” The Doctor yells, so loudly and so abruptly that Yaz jumps. The Doctor hastily rearranges the metal layers of machinery back over the golden light, plunging the room into comparable darkness. The Doctor reels around, sniffing the air in suspicion. As she does, Yaz notices the lights beginning to power up once again, and the familiar whirrs and chirps of the TARDIS fill the empty spaces surrounding. 

 

“Wow, that was quick, I promise I’ll pull the right wibbly lever this time.” Yaz chuckled, getting to her feet and walking up on deck once again. 

 

“No, no this is wrong, it shouldn't have been able to power up so quickly.” 

 

“Well, we just got lucky didn’t we. Just finish up what you were doing and we can go out and see the galaxy” _finally,_ she wanted to add, but kept her mouth shut. Yaz moved to tap the Doctor on the shoulder, grinning “your favourite galaxy in the whole universe, remember?” The Doctor jumped at her touch, and Yaz tried to disguise her hurt as the Doctor went on pacing around the console, ignoring her. The way her eyes grew wide and blank, Yaz could almost see her brain going into overdrive, gears spinning at break-neck pace behind the eyes. 

 

“It should’ve taken at least twenty-four hours for the TARDIS to scrounge up this much artron energy – it’s a trace, remember, not exactly an abundant resource – very rare, very deadly in high concentrations.”

 

“What are you saying?” Yaz asked, concerned. 

 

“I’m saying there must be another time traveller here – and I’m not talking about some novice like Taco –“

 

“Krasko.” Yaz corrected.

 

“Whatever – with his silly vortex manipulator. Have I told you how much I hate those things? They’re downright horrible –“

 

“Yeah, yeah, cheap and nasty time travel you only mention it every time we come across one. What were you saying?”

 

“Sorry, sorry Yaz I’m rambling to stop myself from worrying, because I’m properly worrying Yaz, I’m –“

 

“Doctor, it’s okay. You don’t have to shelter me if it’s dangerous, I can handle it.”

 

“In such high concentrations, that and the fact that the energy was instantaneously TARDIS compatible with little to no conversion on our part means that there is another TARDIS here, now.” 

 

“And that’s bad?”

 

“Potentially very, also nigh on impossible. Maybe it’s Clara, wouldn’t that be a nice surprise eh?” The Doctor let herself smile for a moment before scrunching her face up in concentration again. “Either that or it’s another time lord, which means they’ve found a way out of their little self-contained pocket dimension and they’ve decided to pay a visit.”

 

“But they’re your people right?” Yaz asked, still struggling to understand the Doctor’s fear at this prospect. “Isn’t that good, didn’t you say they were lost?” 

 

“Lost yes, but for good reason. They may not be about to rage war on all creation but they’ve definitely got it in for me after the stunt I pulled last time I was on Gallifrey.” She grabbed Yaz by the shoulders with fierce intensity, trying to communicate the gravity of the situation. “They’re called Time Lords for a reason Yaz, they have appointed themselves overseers, sort of curators of time. I’m a traveller that does a lot of interfering, and they’ve been trying to put a stop to that for a long time. If they’re here, then they’re here for me – and I… I don’t think I can stop them.” Her voice trailed off in her realisation, all her usual energy drained out of her.

 

“What are they gonna do to you.” Yaz murmured. 

 

“Oh, imprisonment, torture, exile, induced regeneration, it really is a gamble with that lot. More importantly, you. Last time they found me with humans on board they stripped them of all memory of me and dropped them back on earth as if I was never there.” 

 

“No,” Yaz muttered, shaking her head, “no they can’t do that.” 

 

The Doctor turns to meet her gaze, her expression despairing, as if she was already imagining herself through the situation. Worse, she knew just how Yaz felt, and she couldn’t let it happen again. “I’m sorry.” She whispered, looking at Yaz with a sort of hopeless longing that looked so out of place on the face of a woman always so full of life and hope, always so carefree. “I’m so sorry.” She pulled her eyes away, as if she couldn’t bear to look at her. Yaz knew what she was feeling – it was guilt. 

 

“Right,” the Doctor nodded, pulling herself together and slapping a smile back onto her face “no use worrying about it now, I could be wrong. It doesn’t happen regularly but there’s a first time for everything.” Yaz rolled her eyes, smiling, trying desperately not to think about a world without the Doctor, without the TARDIS and the universe and that beautiful tangle of artron energy guiding them along. That had been her world up until a few weeks ago – but now she couldn’t even imagine going back. Worse still, she thought of the Doctor, the bright, beautiful, fierce Doctor who sometimes let her smile slip away and show the enduring pain beneath it. _Imprisonment, torture, exile, induced regeneration._ Wasn’t that like murder? The time lords were going to kill the Doctor and it would be all her fault for pulling that stupid curly fry lever. Lost in the turmoil of her thoughts, and the sound of the Doctor fiddling with machinery and whirring her sonic, Yaz didn’t notice the figure approaching the TARDIS doors. It was a woman’s voice, hardly the imposing, regal tone she was expecting. 

 

“Oh! there you are,” the voice exclaimed, hardly a tone of reckoning judgement, more like one of pleasant surprise. Her words echoed into the box as she went to open the doors. “I was starting to think I’d gotten los–“ The woman stops short as she entered the entryway, doors creaking inwards as the light of the TARDIS cast a warm glow onto her face. She wore a denim jacket bedecked with patches and enamel pins representing everything from fry packets to flying saucers, and her coiled dark hair sprouted upwards in a tangled ball above dark eyes widened in shock. _Bigger on the inside_ , Yaz thought, _you get used to it. “_ What the hell happened to the Tardis?” She marvelled, scanning the room until her eyes came to rest on Yasmin. “Oh, hi there,” she said, friendly warmth mixed with a poignant brand of confusion. “Sorry, who are you? My friend was in here a second ago but err…” her eyes once again scanned the room in shock, “something’s happened.”

 

“Um,” she faltered, wondering if this was some sort of trick. “I’m Yaz. Who are you looking for?”

 

“The Doctor, have you seen him?” Yaz hesitated before answering, but she was almost completely sure this girl wasn’t a time lord. It wasn’t a risky assumption to make between the patches on her jacket reading things like ‘fries before guys,’ and ‘I was abducted by aliens.’ In fact, Yaz was fairly certain she had seen that exact pin at the shopping centre in Sheffield. 

 

"Err, yeah she’s just below deck – hey Doctor?” She shouted, trying to be heard over the continuing clanging of machinery below. 

 

“Yeah I’m working on it Yaz!” She called back, evidently flustered. “I’m just trying to identify the energy signature and work out our best move, I can do this,” she sounded more as if she were reassuring herself. “I promise you.”

 

“W-wait,” the woman stuttered, craning her neck to the source of the Doctor’s voice. 

 

“It’s not that, it’s err… someone’s here looking for you and I’m pretty sure she’s not a Time Lord.” 

 

“Doctor, is that you?” She called out, seeming skeptical. Once again, the Doctor poked her head up over the landing to rest her chin on the floor above. Her goggles were propped up on her forehead, setting her short blonde hair sticking out at electric angles. Her eyes widened comically at the sight of the newcomer. Not taking her eyes off the woman, the Doctor scrambled up the stairs clumsily and stepped slowly towards her – brushing past Yasmin with not so much as a second glance. The woman looked taken aback, and still very clearly confused. The Doctor continued forward, taking long, methodical strides like an animal closing in on its prey, she still wasn’t blinking as she lent forwards, peering up at the taller woman. She stuck her chin up, cocking her head to one side while narrowing her eyes.

 

“Bill.” She murmured, barely audibly, in an unreadable monotone. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bill is suitably impressed by the Doctor's new look

The woman – who was apparently called Bill – was leaning back away from the Doctor’s intrusive expression. “Oookaay,” she drawled, putting her hands up into a defensive position. The Doctor moved so suddenly that she almost made Yaz jump a second time. At first, she was worried that the Doctor was trying to attack Bill but, instead, she pulled her into a tight hug. The Doctor seemed to let out all of her pent up anxiety in one, long, exhale. Bill seemed taken aback at first, but gently wrapped her arms around the Doctor, leaning down to hook her chin around the smaller woman’s shoulder. Yasmin watched her expression carefully as it transformed from confusion, to realisation, to a sort of sad warmth and friendliness (not without a dash of confusion to top it off). 

 

Bill pulled away slightly, searching the Doctor’s face. “Doctor?” It was less of a question, more of an incredulous statement. 

 

The Doctor blinked and shook her head, as if being pulled back to reality. “Yes, Bill!” She cried abruptly, raising her hand and pointing at the woman. “Wrong Tardis I’m afraid” – she turned and began pacing again, her voice lowered to near incoherent mutterings supposedly directed at the ship itself – “how can we be here, I specifically said not here, not now! I keep track of where I’ve been for a reason. Oh!” She exclaimed, face lighting up as she dashed over to Yasmin’s side. “Yaz it makes sense!” She clapped her hands together, once again making Yaz jump – she really wasn’t following this whole emotional rollercoaster. “False alarm, I’m so sorry, I was picking up the signal of my own TARDIS – oh that’s embarrassing,” she chuckled, “you’d think I’d recognise that energy signature after all these years!” She tapped the console playfully, swinging around the centrepiece to face Bill, who was still (rightly) confused. 

 

She takes a moment to collect her thoughts. “Wait, you’re really the Doctor?”

 

The Doctor walks up and takes Bill’s hand in hers, pressing it up to her cheek as if to prove she’s real. “Yes, Doctor, here, me, hello!” She flashes Bill a winning smile before dropping her hand and turning back to face the console. She rubs her hands together energetically, ready to get to work. Bill walked up to the console beside her and placed a hand against the crystal lining that ran between the mechanisms like golden streams. The TARDIS replied with a warm euphony of whirrs and hums. “See, she’s missed you.” The Doctor smiles, stroking the console appreciatively, “that’s right old girl, Bill’s back.” 

 

“So, the Time Lords _aren’t_ coming?” Yaz asked, still not quite able to expel the thought of losing all memory of the Doctor from her mind. 

 

The Doctor, stopping her rampant fiddling with the TARDIS controls, came to face Yaz and placed her hands on her shoulders, showing an expression of deep compassion. “I’m sorry if I scared you Yaz, honestly I scared myself…” she smiled sadly, before catching herself and covering it with a grin. “But, now we’ve got another problem to deal with.” She wheeled around to face Bill, hands on her hips. 

 

“Hey, look,” Bill said, looking the Doctor up and down, “I don’t use the term glo-up lightly but… wow.” 

 

“Hey!” The Doctor yelled, waving her hands in the air as if shooing away a fly. “No flirting, I’m against the flirting!” 

 

“Ugh,” Bill rolled her eyes, “you sound just like him.”

 

“Yeah,” she nodded in a mock-patronising manner, “because I am him.”

 

Bill grinned back, ”I know, I know,” she dismissed. 

 

“Ok, hang on a second,” Yaz interjected, “can one of you please just explain to me what’s going on?”

 

“Oh, right, Yaz.” The Doctor said, as if just remembering her friend was there. “You remember when we first met? a–“

 

“When you crashed through the roof of a train?” She interrupted, it was always fun to remind the Doctor of her greatest moments.

 

“Err… yeah, that,” she dismissed, scratching the back of her neck and looking down as if in guilt. 

 

“Um, excuse me, you did what?” Bill asked, on the verge of laughter. 

 

"Not important.” She Doctor assured her, turning back to address Yaz. “I’d just regenerated, every cell burning up and transforming into a whole new body – happens every time I’m dying. Whole new me every few centuries – you know how it goes, but, I have a time machine – so sometimes, I run into myself.”

 

“Yourself? So you’ve met past versions of yourself?” Yaz was confused when travelling with the Doctor at the best of times, but throwing in paradoxical meetings with oneself was a whole new level of incomprehensible weirdness. 

 

“There, you’re getting it, except I don’t, not now. I don’t remember this happening at all…” she trailed off once again, likely searching her mind for some recollection of this moment happening in the past, from a different perspective. 

 

“Oh, and this is Bill, by the way –“ she exclaimed, indicating the woman, who waved at Yaz with a friendly smile.

 

“Bill Potts.” She said, giving another, slightly more awkward wave. 

 

“Yasmin Khan.” She replied, returning a reluctant wave of greeting. 

 

Now that the formalities were out of the way, the Doctor turned back to Bill, suddenly serious. “Where is he now, is he looking for you?

 

“Not yet, don’t think so anyway. He said I could wander off for a bit while he did some work on the Tardis, we were going to watch the galaxy together because, you know how he likes to tell you all about best planets in view –“

 

“Akhaten, for sure,” the Doctor said, nodding to herself. “Best market place you’ll ever see – bit of a scary sun monster though… what?” The Doctor demanded, noticing Bill’s exchange of a glance with Yaz as if to say ‘she’s always like this.’ 

 

“Anyway, as I was saying,” Bill shot the Doctor a teasing glance, “something went wrong with the TARDIS, like all it’s energy got drained out in one go, so he told me to go on ahead and have a look around while he fixed it up.”

 

“Ah,” the Doctor replied, looking guiltily over to Yaz, “yeah that would’ve been us. And, now that you mention it I do remember this happening. Don’t remember any details though, apart from that we got home safe to Bristol and got some chips, probably, we seemed to do that a lot. On the way over you were trying to explain the contexts in which the word ‘lit’ doesn’t refer to something being physically alight.” 

 

“You’d better throw in an example just to prove you remember my teachings. You teach me physics and all that space stuff, I teach you how to be, as you put it ‘down with the kids.’”

 

“Come on, stop, you’re making me nostalgic,” the Doctor sniffs, once again that sad little smile stretching across her face. Yasmin couldn’t help but wonder: what had happened to this girl? “Come on Bill,” the Doctor sighed, “time to get you back in the TARDIS, the right one this time.” The Doctor stepped towards Bill, lifting her hands up towards the sides of Bill’s head, fingers splayed and poised gracefully. 

 

Bill recoiled and pushed her hands away. “No, no you are so not doing a mind wipe! I told you, I’m not having you messing around with my memories alright!” The Doctor faltered, considering the look of horror and indignation on Bill’s face. She backed down, looking ashamed. 

 

“Right, of course. I’m sorry.” She murmured. 

 

“Hey so, when we find the other TARDIS, can I introduce you two?” 

 

The Doctor turns to Bill with a wide-eyed expression of absolute terror. “No, absolutely not that’s a terrible idea. As you might say, it would be decidedly not lit.” She shakes her head profusely, as if she could shake the very notion from her mind. Yaz stifles a laugh as she catches Bill’s eye. 

 

“What, would a time thing happen?” Bill asks, it was always a ‘time thing’ that got in the way. 

 

“Yes, probably a big messy time thing would happen,” the Doctor stuttered, now busying herself at the console again, “and I’m not really in the mood for one of those. I’d rather leave myself well enough alone.” The Doctor pulls a rubber mallet out of her seemingly boundless jacket pockets and hits the console with it a few times, which, somehow, brings up a screen showing two flashing red dots on a grid like map of the observation deck facility. “Right, here is your TARDIS. Bill, do you think you can remember the layout or do I need to tattoo it onto your eyelids.” 

 

Bill rolled her eyes again, but smiled all the same. “It’s alright, I think I’ve got it. Maybe next time don’t part the TARDIS so close and I won’t get confused.”

 

“And you can’t say a word about this, you hear?” The Doctor reminded her, “I don’t remember this, therefore he never knew about it in the first place, got it?”

 

“Yeah, yeah ok.”

 

“I’m getting the feeling you’re not taking this seriously Bill.” She said, narrowing her eyes. 

 

“Nah it’s just that, you’re too cute y’know.” The Doctor widened her eyes in exasperated shock and turned to continue tapping away at the controls. Bill chuckled and cast Yaz a knowing look, and she couldn’t help but return the gesture. It _was_ sort of difficult to take the Doctor seriously with her big puppy-dog eyes and crazy facial expressions. 

 

The Doctor was muttering to herself. “Cute? She wouldn’t have said that to me when I was him, I just can’t pull off _stern_ like I used to –“ she spun around and raised her voice suddenly – “I can be stern, right Yaz?” She asked hopefully, pointing at her face as she screwed up her eyebrows with comical exaggeration. Yaz was saved from having to answer by the sound of yet another voice outside the TARDIS doors. 

 

“Bill!” They shouted, pounding on the doors, which seemed to have locked themselves in the interim. “Bill, wrong Tardis!” It was a man’s voice, very panicked and very… Scottish. “Bill, can you hear me in there.” Things were starting to make sense to Yaz, in their own, very confusing way. The Doctor sighed deeply and threw her arms up in frustration, but Bill was grinning, as if she couldn’t wait to see this all unfold. 

**Author's Note:**

> You may be wondering why I'm posting this now when I have an incomplete clara fic at the moment, answer is I wrote this one months ago and just forgot to post it. I've been working on some original stuff but I do plan to finish these eventually :)


End file.
